Alex

They're getting ready for something big, Alex thought to himself as he peered at Shelley and Jack out his room window. 

They were gathering items like flashlights and pocket knives into small grocery bags, Alex even thought he saw Jack put a whole hammer into his bag. He knew they were preparing for something, but what? Shelley didn't inform Alex about anything, even though it was a rule of The Gang to tell each other stuff.

 Alex came to the assumption that Shelley didn't tell him because he was too young, and that all the others in The Gang were also preparing for whatever event was going to happen, so, since Ben was the only other person who was around Alex's age, he was probably being left behind for the mission too, and he needed to be told about it.

 Alex dashed to his dresser, opened the top drawer, and pulled his Space Patrol Walkie-Talkie out. He and his sister used to use them frequently when they were younger but Shelley didn't use hers at all when she hit thirteen, so Alex gave it to Ben so they could communicate even when far away.

 He switched it to their shared channel, "Ben, do you hear me? I repeat, do you hear me? Over." 

It took two minutes before there was a response from Ben, "uh, yeah, I hear you, what is it? Over."

 "I think The Gang is planning something big tonight, and they're leaving us out of it for some reason. Over." 

"What do you think they're planning? Over."

 "Well, I don't know for sure, but Shelley and Jack look like they're packing knives and flashlights and hammers and shit, over." Alex said as he peeked out the window again to confirm that was what they were packing. 

"Okay, well, what should I do about it? Over." Ben asked over the radio.

"Just meet me at my house, okay? And go through the backyard so Shelley and Jack don't see you, Over." Alex responded.

 "Okay, Roger that, over." Ben said quickly.

After that, Alex waited for ten minutes by the backdoor before he heard a knock, he opened the curtains and found Ben standing on the porch in the back, he was holding his right arm nervously, before he looked at Alex. 

Alex opened the door for him, "good, you came."

 "Your parents won't be mad about this, right? I don't think they like me that much." Ben stated.

 "Who cares about them? Let's just get to my room." Alex said hastily.

 Alex and Ben ran down the halls and went through the left door, and Alex closed and locked it behind Ben. Ben sat on the blue carpet that laid on the floor, and Alex did the same.

 "Okay, so I've got a plan. Shelley and Jack are probably gonna leave any moment, and once they do, we'll follow them on my bike. But we'll have to be quiet so they don't spot us, otherwise we're fucked." Alex said, he pulled Ben to the window and both the boys peeked out and watched their older peers, who were talking through their own walkie talkies.

 Alex assumed they were talking through another channel to the rest of The Gang. Shelley never told him they had their own channel, and he knew that was probably to make sure he didn't use it. 

"Those shitheads! I didn't know they had their own channel." Alex growled, Ben looked at him with a shocked expression, as if he'd never seen Alex mad before.

 Alex noticed this. "Sorry, I was being dramatic. It's just annoying they're always leaving me out." He said, crossing his arms over the window trim, and resting his head on his arms as he looked out. "Maybe I should make my own gang or something, if they keep doing shit like this." 

Ben also rested his head on his arms and looked out, "Yeah, maybe. I can help you with it, too. I've been making more friends in Art Class, I can try to get them to join."

 Alex smiled, "yeah, maybe. But a lot of kids think I'm weird. I don't think they'd join a gang if I was the leader." 

"I doubt that." Ben said, "I think you're really cool, once they get to know you they'd probably think that too."

 "You think so?" Alex asked.

"I know so." Ben responded. 

Alex's smile was bigger this time, when Ben saw that he blushed and quickly looked away. Alex felt his heart beat a little faster when he saw that, then he looked out the window.

 "SHIT! They're gone." Alex dashed to the door, unlocked it, and looked back at Ben. "We gotta go now! They must've just left!"

 Ben and Alex ran as fast as they could to the garage and hopped on the bike, Ben wrapped his arms around Alex and he pedaled out of the garage. Alex looked down both sides of the street and he saw Shelley and Jack turn onto Cannon Street before disappearing, he followed their route. 

"Do you think they'll see us?" Ben asked in a nervous tone. 

"No, not with how we're going right now." Alex responded quickly. 

Alex turned up Cannon Street. He saw Shelley and Jake speak about something then take a right down December Street. So he slowed down his pace, waited a moment, and took a right as well.

 This kept happening, when Shelley and Jack went down Loop Street, so did Alex, when they went down Main Street, so did Alex, and when they went up King's Way, so did Alex. But the strange part was when they took a left from King's Way, because Alex didn't remember their being any other streets that connected to King's Way, it was known as a lone road. 

"What the hell...?" He said aloud, even though it was mostly to himself. 

"What is it?" Ben asked in a curious tone. "Did something happen to them? I can't see them that well from back here." 

"No, nothing happened, they just took a left. I didn't know there was another street around here." Alex murmured, he caught up to where they went and saw that they left their bikes near the trees alongside the other gang members bikes. 

Everyone really was told to go to this place, everyone except for Ben and Alex, that was. They got off their bike, let it sit on a tree, and creeped slowly up Tally Drive. Alex looked left and right and just saw trees, no houses, until he looked up and saw that there was one, but it looked small and old. 

"Why's there only one house here?" Ben whispered behind Alex. 

"I don't know. This place is weird..." Alex responded. He felt a sudden feeling of dread, like he shouldn't be here. He looked back at Ben, and gulped. "M-maybe we shouldn't be here. I think I made a mistake." He said with quivering lips.

 Ben looked at him with an empathetic expression and grabbed his shoulder gently. "Hey, it's okay. You didn't make a mistake. I think you're just nervous or something." He said, with a forced smile, Alex could tell Ben was scared too but didn't show it, but it made him feel safe

. "Okay, yeah, you're right. I'm just getting nervous."

 "Yeah, and you've got me. So nothing bad's gonna happen to you anyway."

 Alex smiled at this, Ben smiled back. "Thanks." Alex breathed.

 The two boys continued creeping up the road, until they reached a broken tree branch and looked over it. They saw Jack, Shelley, and the rest of The Gang, they all had flashlights, which made sense because the sun was halfway behind the mountain, soon it would be dark. 

"Shit. We forgot flashlights." Alex said, looking up at the sky. 

"Wait," Ben said, he fumbled through his jacket's pocket and pulled a tiny flashlight out. "There's only one, but it works." 

"You just carry a flashlight everywhere?" Alex asked with a smirk.

 "Yeah..." Ben said, with an embarrassed expression.

  Crrrrrrack! Alex and Ben looked over at the sudden noise and saw The Gang opened the door of the suburban house, they talked to each other, and it seemed like Tina was arguing with Jack about something, before all of them went in.

Shelley

Crrrrrack! The door finally opened after Jack kicked it two times.

 "Nice one Jack, I'm sure the serial killer living inside didn't hear that." Tina said sarcastically. 

Jack turned back and groaned. "Tina, if you wanna go back home, then just say so. We aren't gonna think you're a scaredy-cat or anything. If that's what you're worried about."

 Shelley nodded, "He's right. This is creepy for all of us, but he thinks it means something, so it's probably important."

 "Well, I get that. It's just shouldn't it just be you and him going? Cause none of us saw or dreamt any weird shit about a house and a dead guy." Tina said, "only you two."

 "We get that, but the whole gang sticks together on missions." Jack responded.

 "We left Alex and that other kid Ben behind, though." Griffith said, his arms crossed. 

"Yeah, 'cause my brother and his friend are too young for this shit." Shelley said, "let's just go in and get this done already." She looked at everyone for their reactions, they looked at each other and nodded. 

"Okay." Tina said, before they all walked over the moldy rug under the door and stepped in. 

The order of who went in was Jack, Carter, Annie, Shelley, Griffith and Tina. Shelley turned her flashlight on and looked around, it smelled horrendous, but she didn't care to mention it because she felt it was too obvious to mention.

 Something in the house made her heartbeat raise, she felt like something was watching them, but no matter where she turned the flashlight, she didn't see any eyes. Shelley walked into the kitchen, which smelled even worse than the doorway, it smelled of mold, rat shit, beer, and rotting wood. 

She felt a hand on her shoulder, quickly she flashed the light on whatever was behind her and she saw Jack's face covered in the yellow white light, he pushed her flashlight out of his face.

 "Relax, it's just me. I just wanted to let you know we should stick together, people always die in horror movies when they split up." Jack said with a smirk.

 "We're comparing this search to a horror movie, that's a good sign." Shelley said with a returned smile as she followed Jack back to the rest of the Gang. 

"There's Shelley, we thought you went missing too." Carter said with a grin that was considerably uglier than Shelleys'. 

The Gang walked down the long halls of the house, Shelley felt like the interior of the house was larger than the exterior. "We better not find Michael Myers in this shitty place." She said.

 Tina looked back at her. "I second that. Actually, if we see anyone in this dump, I'm gonna kill Jack." The wallpaper around the hall was a yellow-green and cracked for that matter. 

"How come this place hasn't been taken down?" Griffith asked, "it's way too old to be lived in."

 "Maybe everyone who tried to take it down died." Carter said in a spooky tone. 

"Oh, shut up, dickhead." Annie groaned, "maybe they keep this place around for the homeless people. My mom said some towns have places like that."

 "Yeah, but this doesn't seem like a very good community center, if that's the case." Shelley said.

 "Wait, guys look! There's some portraits here, it looks like this place belonged to some old family." Jack said. He showed the others an old black and white photo of a family of three standing in front of the house, in the photo the house looked a lot cleaner and less creepy.

 "It says it was taken in 1966. So not that long ago." Griffith muttered.

 Suddenly, the sound of old music could be heard coming from behind one of the doors in the hall. 

"What the hell?" Tina whispered. "Someone else has to be in here, we should get the fuck out before we're caught." She was panicking and breathing faster.

 The Gang walked closer to the source of the music, and found that it was coming from behind the door on the left at the end of the hallway. Jack put his hand on the doorknob, and the music stopped playing. Tina was about to say something, but Jack put a finger on his mouth, a signal for everyone to shut up. He pushed the door open and used his flashlight to look around, but there was nobody in the room, there was a record player, however.

 "This place is fuckin' haunted, I knew it." Tina mumbled.

 Carter smiled. "You say that like it's a bad thing, I think it's fuckin' awesome it's haunted."

 Jack nodded, "yeah, I mean this is the first time our spirit hunting stuff has led to something."

 Shelley stayed quiet, she didn't know how to feel about this. The house definitely had a supernatural presence, she agreed with that, but she didn't know if it was a good spirit or one that wanted to hurt them. Then a thought came to mind, a thought she needed everyone to hear. 

"Wait, what if this is where Allen Hall died, what if his spirit is possessing this place?" She asked, she looked at the others but Jack mainly for validation. 

Jack nodded and his eyes lit up like Shelley made an insane revelation, "that would make sense why I saw him near this place when I was biking, too!" 

"Yeah-" Shelley was about to say, when she was interrupted by a large crash coming from the room behind them.

 She pointed her flashlight over to the door, which was down another hallway, this one smaller and with three doors. She walked slowly down the hall.

 "What are you doing Shelley?! Wait for us!" Jack whisper-yelled. 

She sighed. "Fine... Just hurry up, please."

 Once The Gang caught up with her she opened the door, and she discovered not a ghost, but her brother and his friend, cleaning up glass off the old carpet.

 "What the hell are you guys doing here?!" Shelley growled. "You were supposed to stay home!"

 Alex looked up with eyes of slight guilt which quickly turned to annoyance. "Well, we didn't want to be left out. You guys always leave us out, and it's not fair."

 Ben nodded, agreeing with Alex. "Yeah, he's right. We aren't babies or anything." 

Shelley groaned and grabbed Alex and Ben's arms, both the boys were yelling. "I'm taking you guys home, this shit is way too dangerous for you guys." 

"Oh, come on!" Alex cried.

 The rest of The Gang just watched, most of them were too embarrassed to get in on this family dilemma. 

But Jack decided to speak. "Shelley, why does it matter? Let's just have 'em here, too."

 Shelley was now near the front doorway when she turned to look back at Jack and let go of Alex and Ben's arms. "Listen, Jack. You're an only child, which is fine, but it means you don't understand how siblings can fuck stuff up real bad." She said, "I'm just gonna bike Alex and Ben to the house, then I'll come back, it'll be quick." 

Jack hesitated. "Well, yeah, that's fine I guess..." 

Shelley looked back at the younger boys before she realized they were both frozen, staring at the dark dining room table on their right. 

Shelley looked over and saw a man sitting at the end of the table, she flashed her flashlight on him. His eyes were red, but the bottom eyelids skin was pulled down under the eyes in a triangular shape, he was dead. 

"What. The. Fuck!" She yelled. 

The Gang caught up quickly and saw the missing man as well. "It's- It's him. Is he dead?" Annie asked quietly, breathing fast. 

The whole group was frozen with fear. Tina turned to Jack. "We gotta call the police right now! This guy was obviously fuckin' murdered! Come on!" She dashed out the door and pulled Jack with her. Shelley brought Alex and Ben out too.

 "What was that?" Ben asked Alex, but Alex just looked back at him with terror. 

"I-I don't know. I don't know..." Alex whispered.

  Shelley quickly grabbed their arms and walked them down the road. "We're going home."

 "Wait! No, Shelley, you have to stay here. Me and Tina are gonna go bike to the station and we'll be back with the police, but we need you and the others to keep an eye on Allen."  Jack said quickly.

"Are you joking? Do you think he's gonna fuckin' run off? I need to get Alex and Ben home! It's not safe, obviously!" Shelley yelled. 

"Fine, Annie can get them home, just you stay here with Carter and Griffin, okay?" Jack said. 

 "Why me?" Shelley asked. 

 "Because I trust you more than anyone else, just please keep an eye on Allen, the police need to see this."

 "He's dead! He can't fuckin move!" Shelley yelled. "This is stupid!" 

But it was too late, Jack and Tina were already dashing down Tally Drive to their bikes. "Fuck this," Shelley said, and walked back to Alex and Ben.

 "Alex, Ben, Annie's gonna bike you guys home, got it?" She asked, she tried to keep her tone more controlled.

Alex shook his head, "No, no, no. We aren't leaving if you aren't."

 Shelley grabbed Alex's shoulder. "Alex. Now is not the time to act all protective brother right now. You and Ben need to be as far away from this house as possible, do you understand?" 

Alex stayed quiet, and nodded silently and Shelley walked to Annie, "Annie, I need you to bike them home, all right?"

 Annie looked at Shelley with a blank expression, and nodded. "Y-Y-Yeah... I'll do that..." She said, Shelley thought she was still processing all of this, who was she kidding, everyone was, it seemed like something out of a movie.

 Annie took Ben and Alex and walked them down Tally Drive, Shelley watched for a bit before she walked back into the house, where Griffith and Carter were staring at Allen.

Griffith was inspecting the body from across the table with a terrified look. Carter walked over to Shelley, "who do you think fucked up his eyes? Jack told me he thinks that he did. He said he's probably some suicidal lunatic or something."

 "No, Jack's the lunatic, here." Shelley responded, she felt cold all of a sudden.

 She peeked outside and saw everyone was gone, Jack and Tina to the station and Alex, Ben, and Annie to the houses. Shelley then walked back in and sat at the table, she flicked the flashlight on Allen to see if he had any other scars besides his eyes, she was trying not to freak out, but it was hard to keep it all in. Everyone seemed to be too shocked to even express anything on their face. 

When she had the light over Allen's red eyes, he blinked only with his top eyelids. The look in his eyes was almost unhuman, he had to be dead, there was no emotion behind those blood-red eyes. 

Allen's pupils shifted to look directly at Shelley.

"What the fuck..." She whispered,  and her heart beated faster than ever before.

 Allen's neck started bleeding, blood gushed out of every side, just like in Shelley's nightmare.

 "Oh my god!" She yelled. Carter and Griffith yelled too. Allen's head slid off and landed on the table with a splash of blood and thud. Shelley was horrified at this and almost puked.

 Allen's headless body was still moving, the fingers made a cracking sound as each finger got longer and the nails began to grow long, each hand scratched each side of the table, then the body stood up. 

"WHAT THE FUCK!" Carter yelled. "WE'RE GETTING OUT OF HERE NOW!" He grabbed Shelley and Griffith, both of which were standing still, frozen, and pulled them out of the door and slammed it shut. "Get to the bikes!" 

Shelley came back to reality and started dashing down the road. She made it to her bike, hopped on, and used her foot to push it away from the tree, and she pedaled the fastest she ever had in her life. 

After a minute of pedaling she looked behind her and saw Griffith and Carter doing pedaling quickly as well. They all turned down Main Street, where the Police Station was. They cycled onto the sidewalk where they met Jack, Tina, and Officer Shelby in a police car.

 Jack yelled at them. "Why didn't you stay at the house?!" 

"He's not fuckin' dead. He's not..." Shelley breathed quickly.

"His head fell off! A-a-and-and he stood up!" Carter yelled in a terrified tone.

 "Whoa, whoa, whoa kids." Officer Shelby said, "just show us where Allen is, if he's really there."

 Jack nodded, got on his bike, went off the sidewalk, and rode up King's Way, Shelley sighed and followed him and the police car and the others followed behind them. 

The biked and biked up King's Way, but something was wrong, it was taking way longer to find Tally Drive this time.

Jack was a little further ahead then Shelley when he yelled: "Where is it?"

"What do you mean?" Shelley looked over and realized that there was no road on their left and no sign that said in big white letters: TALLY DR.

 The two teens stopped in the middle of the road and looked around, there was only forest around them. 

"Where the fuck did it go? It was here, right?" Jack asked.

 Shelley nodded. "Yeah. Yeah, it was." 

Officer Shelby braked his vehicle behind them and got out. "What is this?" He asked as he examined the dense forest around them.

 "It was right here, officer. Tally Drive!" Jack cried out. "I swear to god!" 

"Tally Drive?" The officer groaned and ran his fingers through his hair with a grimace on his face. "Nice prank, kid." he said, "Tally Drive's been gone for years." He opened the vehicles door, "why do kids do this?" And he got into the vehicle and drove off.

 Jack looked at the ground with a shocked expression, nobody knew what to say. "How? We didn't hallucinate it, right? It was here. I know it was..." He mumbled.

 Shelley wiped sweat off her forehead and surveyed the forest again as if she thought they missed a place. Jack even biked further up King's Way, he searched for anything, but there was no road on the left. Tally Drive was gone, and the strange house from the past was gone along with it.